Post by Unregistered Cherokee on May 9, 2012 18:08:02 GMT -6
Hello everyone,
It looks like I posted my intro in the wrong place - nativeamerican.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=tribes&thread=541&page=1
I have an interesting history. My Dad was half-Cherokee. I believe I was born hearing, and then lost my hearing within the first year (though my parents claimed that I was born deaf, but how do you explain starting to learn to talk at two MONTHS old and then slowly learn words after the first year). No one knew that I was profoundly deaf until I was seven and a half, after I had failed first grade much earlier in that school year. When we had the Thanksgiving play in Kindergarten, I was almost 6. I wasn't communicating well at all and had no idea what was going on around me, the ABC recitals, the flag pledge, nothing.
My Dad had strong emotions about the Indian side of the family, as he grew up in the 20s and early 30s. This was a time when being Indian was considered being half a notch above being black. It was really hard and turned people like my Dad into fighters. I mean, he could take down several men around him. Dad took home his school teacher to visit his mother one day, and as soon as she saw my grandmother, she turned right around and walked back out of the house without saying a word. Years later, some time in the 80s or 90s, Dad was watching some western about Indians and cowboys. I happened to look at him, and there was a tear running down his face. I wished I had asked him what he was feeling and thinking about at that moment, but I was afraid of his anger. As I think about that today, it hits me very hard emotionally. I don't know why that hits me that way, unless it reminds him of this part of the family who passed before he did, and I know it? It's a mystery...
I have been going through documents and hundreds of photos. And I'm beginning to understand what's happening here... Why I get angry on some things the way I do.
My great-grandfather fought in the American Civil War as a private in Border's Cavalry, Border's Battalion, Border's Regiment, or Anderson's Cavalry (it's confusing, because it he listed as Co. E, Border's Regiment on the Confederate Pension Application). This whole 8th Texas Cavalry was the ONLY cavalry unit to defeat an infantry army in the American Civil War. TWICE. Now, I know where my anger and my rebel streak comes from! Another Indian relative was in Company A, 8th Texas Cavalry and shows up on a roll of prisoners of war, processed through and paroled in 1865.
I can't imagine what this was like, especially since he was Indian to start with, maybe hoping to defeat the Army responsible for the Trail of Tears... Now, it's all beginning to make sense, and I was put here for some reason. But of course, I don't understand fully the circumstances of his enlistment in the Confederate States Army (CSA). Still, I wonder if I was put here to finally witness payback for the hardship of some of my ancestors.
I'm beginning to feel more and more that you get a lot of things passed down to you through the generations physically. As I mentioned before, you may not have been speaking tongues or doing mathematics, or saying to Fred, "Why did you kick down my Daddy's door in 1951?" when you were four years old, but there is something that you KNOW. You can't hide from it. It's there.
And I forgot to add one other thing. My half-aunt's family, the Custer line (through her father), is descended from General Custer of Army infamy. I've, uhh, heard some interesting stories about them that I'm not going to go to in here.
My G-grandmother - www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=26820323
My grandmother - www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=54433616&PIpi=45486859
It looks like I posted my intro in the wrong place - nativeamerican.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=tribes&thread=541&page=1
I have an interesting history. My Dad was half-Cherokee. I believe I was born hearing, and then lost my hearing within the first year (though my parents claimed that I was born deaf, but how do you explain starting to learn to talk at two MONTHS old and then slowly learn words after the first year). No one knew that I was profoundly deaf until I was seven and a half, after I had failed first grade much earlier in that school year. When we had the Thanksgiving play in Kindergarten, I was almost 6. I wasn't communicating well at all and had no idea what was going on around me, the ABC recitals, the flag pledge, nothing.
My Dad had strong emotions about the Indian side of the family, as he grew up in the 20s and early 30s. This was a time when being Indian was considered being half a notch above being black. It was really hard and turned people like my Dad into fighters. I mean, he could take down several men around him. Dad took home his school teacher to visit his mother one day, and as soon as she saw my grandmother, she turned right around and walked back out of the house without saying a word. Years later, some time in the 80s or 90s, Dad was watching some western about Indians and cowboys. I happened to look at him, and there was a tear running down his face. I wished I had asked him what he was feeling and thinking about at that moment, but I was afraid of his anger. As I think about that today, it hits me very hard emotionally. I don't know why that hits me that way, unless it reminds him of this part of the family who passed before he did, and I know it? It's a mystery...
I have been going through documents and hundreds of photos. And I'm beginning to understand what's happening here... Why I get angry on some things the way I do.
My great-grandfather fought in the American Civil War as a private in Border's Cavalry, Border's Battalion, Border's Regiment, or Anderson's Cavalry (it's confusing, because it he listed as Co. E, Border's Regiment on the Confederate Pension Application). This whole 8th Texas Cavalry was the ONLY cavalry unit to defeat an infantry army in the American Civil War. TWICE. Now, I know where my anger and my rebel streak comes from! Another Indian relative was in Company A, 8th Texas Cavalry and shows up on a roll of prisoners of war, processed through and paroled in 1865.
I can't imagine what this was like, especially since he was Indian to start with, maybe hoping to defeat the Army responsible for the Trail of Tears... Now, it's all beginning to make sense, and I was put here for some reason. But of course, I don't understand fully the circumstances of his enlistment in the Confederate States Army (CSA). Still, I wonder if I was put here to finally witness payback for the hardship of some of my ancestors.
I'm beginning to feel more and more that you get a lot of things passed down to you through the generations physically. As I mentioned before, you may not have been speaking tongues or doing mathematics, or saying to Fred, "Why did you kick down my Daddy's door in 1951?" when you were four years old, but there is something that you KNOW. You can't hide from it. It's there.
And I forgot to add one other thing. My half-aunt's family, the Custer line (through her father), is descended from General Custer of Army infamy. I've, uhh, heard some interesting stories about them that I'm not going to go to in here.
My G-grandmother - www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=26820323
My grandmother - www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=54433616&PIpi=45486859